A trick of light
by Swamy
Summary: "Rebekah was not made for any man," Niklaus says. His darkening voice digs a hole inside his own mind, dragging out memories of his infant sister crawling up his chest in the tiny bed he shared with his brother. He always thought she was a bit more his then she was anyone else's. [Warnings: incest theme, sex and violence]
1. Chapter 1

**Note:** I had a surge of klebekah ispiration so I gave it a try (as my bamon readers know well I don't watch either TVD not TO but I always put my effort into studying the characters so I hope you will give it a chance), there will be another chapter of this.

**Beta:** _Syeira Lei_

**WARNINGS:** Incest theme, sex and violence.

#

It's just a trick of light, _obviously_. Yes, it is certainly so, he tells himself as he stares wide eyed at her silhouette standing out against the golden-dyed sky. He's surprised and disarmed by craving and anguish, which are now conjuring to suffocate him.

Her smile is soft and white and she stands tip-toed, her arm stretched above her head as she waves. He's way too far to be able to tell if her joyful eyes are on him, but his heart starts a violent chase after the unreachable illusion of her, and for all his might he can't stop it.

Air leaves him, like a punch to the stomach, his skin grows cold as his loins burn; the startling contrast makes him nauseous, and he must stop in his steps.

The laughter of the boys walking behind him makes him feel ridiculed and he must look away from her. The weight of Conrad's arm as it wraps around his neck to push him into a playful hug is unbearable as he whispers "I believe I have a chance," he says, making Niklaus turn. Conrad is all but looking at him, in fact, his gaze has laid where his should not have ever dared to.

"I shall speak to your father," he adds, mouth grinning, eyes shining.

"She's too young," he objects, trying to rationalize his aversion to his suggestion.

Conrad turns his face to openly show his amusement at his reasoning, "Younger girls then she are happy mothers, and she's far too lovely for us to let her beauty whiter without the care of a man."

"Rebekah was not made for any man," Niklaus says. His darkening voice digs a hole inside his own mind, dragging out memories of his infant sister crawling up his chest in the tiny bed he shared with his brother. He always thought she was a bit more his then she was anyone else's.

Conrad reads his approval in his words – after all, he's young and strong and his wealthy family has large influence in their village, every father would gladly give him their daughter - and he holds his shoulder with one hand.

"She was not," he says nodding, his clean smile an insult to his own shame, "She will have me, won't she?" he asks him, making him grit his teeth as he tries to fake a smile.

"I pray fate will assist me. I shall soon be a married man, my friend."

One of their friends jumps on his back and Conrad barely falters. His strong built body is like a fortress, and he laughs throwing the other on the ground. The others join them in a play of fight and Niklaus can't help but look in her direction. He can picture her, with ribbons and flowers in her braided hair, ready to put her heart between a man's hands, so in love with love itself to never question their father's arrangements. Maybe she would be happy, when he is already so miserable.

And when she's gone no one will be left to watch him defeat Elijah, no one will hold his hand under the dining table when father decides that he'd like to taste his humiliation to gratify his picky appetite.

Every time father beats him she watches his bloody face, his cut lips, his shiny eyes and she offers him a smile and asks with conceit if that's all Mikael can do, like he's enough of a man to be able to endure much worse – oh, she will probably make him - and then she's at his side, letting him lean on her as she chatters about her boring day like they are out for a stroll.

The golden light of the setting sun is softening. Their mother is dragging her away by the wrist and she manages to steal a glance at them before surrendering to the duties of her day.

His baby sister, his sweet Bekah leaves him there, his shame in the sun, his eyes on her back; and in his head his own voice trying to deceive him into safety. For _it's only a trick of light_. And for the first time he hates her.

#

"Bekah," hers is the first name he says when he wakes up stained in blood and a plague for humanity, her name is the first word that graces his lips. He wants to soothe her panic when he didn't even begin to understand his own.

"We will be alright, we will be alright," he repeats, not caring if he's lying; one hand is on her back, to will her breathing to calm down, and when Mikael comes to force her to drink again and complete the ritual he tries to stop him, but he can't for he is weak. Too weak to fight Mikael, the head of their family, too weak to fight his own need to not see Rebekah die. And in the pit of his soul, his need to not be parted from her is stronger than his desire to see her innocence preserved.

Niklaus watches her head bent on the girl's wounded arm and he thinks of the next centuries with her and the flowers and dresses he'll buy her to make her happy and have her forgetting that he just took away her future for an immobile, eternal moment.

#

[Italy, 1114]

Death has left her beauty untouched. Instead, the grace of her every step, the curve of her plump mouth, each detail of her is like punctuation in a poem. And poetry he was never good at.

Things like confessions, explanations, apologies, have always been alien to him. Words are Elijah's area of expertise and he happily leaves it to him. He hushes up his stream of consciousness with the blood of beautiful girls. He tears it apart and recomposes it into images upon rough paper.

When he catches Elijah staring at the scattered pages his first instinct is to hide them away, but he stops himself.

"You are good," his older brother says, his tone too grave for him not to wonder what he saw in his artistic exploits that he never did. But he doesn't dwell upon it, his heart refuses to linger and his mind follows.

Life is good and he wants to take every ounce of satisfaction he can, wasting his time on his brother's habit of introspection and good conversation seems too unlike him. And they have a vampire hunter to keep at bay. Or Five.

He is too old to be worried about a snot-nosed child that wants to play at hunting, he is way too powerful for that.

"He's nothing. I could eat him for sport," he considers, joyfully, blind at Rebekah's growing affection for the man who's sworn to kill them.

She is supposed to play him, keep him at bay, use him for information and gratification. Instead she has let him take her heart, together with her body, and drive a dagger through them both.

He resents her for being so incapable, for being such a burden, for being a traitor to his cause. He prefers to think of her as the creature that purposely double-crossed him rather than the sister that bloomed in the darkness only to hold on to her naïve heart and give it to someone else, someone she loved and trusted more than she ever did him.

When he un-daggers her, the walls are covered in blood.

"What happened?"

He's frozen in anger, when he takes a step to the side to reveal Alexander, hanging two feet off the ground, pinned by his own sword.

"Ask him," he points a finger at him. "Only, he cannot answer because I've ripped out his tongue. Along with the rest of him."

Her surprise and pain at her lover's death are harder to swallow then the idea of being almost defeated. The hunter betrayed her and he knows that even now she's not hating him.

Her milky skin is only half covered by the gown she surely has let Alexander take off of her, her big blue eyes fill up with tears for the dead man behind him, and he feels like ripping her apart with his bare hands.

"Nik, I had no idea," she pleads.

"But you should have. Your only family was nearly wiped out, because of your stupidity," he can't even look at her. She let that man touch her, touch a part of her he would never, a part of her heaven itself would never allow him to, and for the first time he hates her as much as he loves her. "What did he promise you?"

"Nothing," she says, "Nothing," and it's true, and yet it is not, for she had already made up her mind and if he had never turned on her she would have chosen him, to share her life with. And Alexander knew that.

"He would not have made a move unless he knew you were vulnerable," he says, his teeth itching to sing into her flesh. "You trusted him… over me!" he screams, "What did he promise you?" he asks, his voice unnaturally quiet, his eyes watery.

"Nothing Nik, I swear," she cries harder, scared of him. It's like adding insult to injury.

"What did he promise you? Tell me Rebekah!" And as he screams and she cries he takes her by the shoulders, pulling her off the bed, shaking her like he wants to empty her of the feelings that lead them to this. To him having his little sister in his hands, ready to hurt her as much as he's hurting, ready to love her for all the times he denied himself. To her, half naked, crying for herself and a man that did not deserve her, as she won't even look at him.

Rebekah bends her head and he can't see her eyes. He's glad of that when she tells him, "We were going to marry."

Her words burn like fire and he lets her go. She falls on her knees like she's got no strength left at all. Her hair is plastered to her cheek because of her tears, her left breast spills slightly from her gown and he can't look away from the charming display of her alluring misery.

"There is a cure," she says, unaware of what she's doing, of the pieces of his skin she's tearing away, "A way to go back, Nik. I just wanted to go back."

Silly girl, betrayer, she's going to be sorry for this. She will learn at her own expenses how unfortunate it is to grow up wishing for a fairytale to come true, for a miracle to happen, for a love that will purify her, when you cannot have it.

"Don't you, Nik?" she asks, sobbing, "Aren't you tired of all the charades and the loneliness?"

It's like a slap in the face, for he never thought himself lonely if only she was around. Rebekah, with her big eyes and her apple-like cheeks, his little sister. His, in ways he cannot contemplate unless he is too irate to see straight, to think lucidly.

He bends over her, wraps one hand around her throat and pulls her up until her knees are off the floor. She looks up at him with her pleading eyes and the scent of Alexander all over her is so real he wants to scalp her just so he will never smell it again.

"You're not alone," he hisses between his teeth. "I'll be with you for all your life. I'll be the bane of your existence as you are mine. You will _never_ be alone. In fact, you'll wish you were."

He lets her go, watches her fall, the first time of many. He'll make sure of that.

She wants to have another family, children, wrinkles and die (die without him). She wants to have a chance at building something of her own, live the moments instead of passing thought them, instead of eating them.

She has said that to him. All he heard is that she wants to leave him.

#

[Silk Road, 1348]

A crime against nature, an abomination, this is what they are and he starts to believe that when people all around them start to die, falling one after another like they are flies. They are traveling back along the Silk Road when gossip of a plague starts spreading.

The servants are pale, the sailors are nervous and agitated, and Klaus is infinitely bored. Inside his rich quarters he kills time - and nothing else, sadly – by drinking with his brothers and playing, but travels by the sea are terribly long, especially when one must use parsimony in managing their food, for they die so often, in such a banal manner. A sneeze one day, a black buboe the other, and then they're gone after vomiting half their blood, thrown off the ship, feeding fishes at the bottom of the ocean.

The _Great Plague_, they call it, and he wonders if they are to blame for this too.

His skittish Rebekah will not leave her rooms much, too squeamish. Only a few days before, they were walking on the prow and a loose, worn out shirt revealed to her sight a trail of buboes along the neck of a man, ready to ooze pus at any moment. She had screamed and hidden her face against his chest, insisting like a weepy child that he should kill him and clean the way for her, but without touching him.

The whole thing had turned his mood into brilliancy and he had granted her wish with full satisfaction. He loved to be the man, like he was when she needed to tend to the house and he was left with the blades and the killing.

"Who's your most beloved brother?" he had asked when she had looked at him – only after having him swearing that the man was underwater by now and that he had not touched him.

"Oh why, Elijah, of course," she had replied with a saccharine smile, flirting with trouble the way she always did before heading back to her rooms, which smells like _Anemones_, her favorite flowers.

He can smell them on her, can actually catch the trail of the scent in the air outside her doors, and he wonders if they've already withered. Anemones symbolize ephemeral feelings, abandonment, betrayed love, but even hope and wait. Making a gift out of them is the same as saying _you neglect me, come back to_ _me._ It is not an expression of such idiocy that had him fill her rooms with anemones.

When he peeks through her bedroom door, needy of having her annoy him with her foul temper and her spoiled attitude, he sees her. Naked and unashamed and so enraptured as no other woman was ever. She's on her back, between the sheets of her unmade bed, breast moving as she pants. There's a man kneeling between her legs, face hidden in the folds of her sex and the scent of it makes him stumble back in horror as he recognizes the violent response of his own body. He desperately searches for something that will give away the identity of her lover before he's forced to assist to her – splendid, no doubt – release. A voice somewhere in the back of his mind wonders if that man's tongue is moving with purpose, if he knows what he's doing, who is entrusted to his unrefined ministrations. His baby sister, his sweet Bekah – naked and unashamed and _oh_ so enraptured like no other woman ever was.

The next day that man, and a few others – just to be sure – is thrown off the ship together with all the other corpses. One more, one less, who would ever notice, after all?

#

[Paris, 1359]

Rebekah stands in her new gown, a gift from her thoughtful brother. He's one for details, Niklaus. She's been careful this time around, but not enough it seems, considering that her latest interest is hanging from the ceiling together with all the others snacks her brother has had prepared for his lavishing party.

The unwilling participants, the ones that do not have their feet on the ground and not pierced by an iron hook, those that are not covered from waist to neck are dangling upside down like bats, they are alive but unprotestingly cooperative, confusion assured by the blood-rush to the head, first, and then the gradual lack of it as their guests take a bite and a sip here and there when one of the _dishes_ catches their eye.

Klaus watches her swallow as she looks at the unfocused eyes of her dear, dear Eban, who is probably incapable of master a single thought or prayer, let alone remember the feeling of his sister's mouth on his.

A man should never be deprived of the comfort of memories, he thinks basking in a childish euphoria.

He hates for Rebekah to be so unbecomingly distracted by a mere soldier when he's got alliances to make and history to write. She's always after her unsavory delusion of love. If he ever explained love to her – in touches and shame – she would be horrified. He's been pushing her boundaries for centuries, but that will be the last line he will never cross.

"Is he of your liking?" he asks, sweetly, coming up behind her.

She does not flinch, which is quite disappointing. He likes her passion too much. Maybe he should space out more between one brotherly sign of affection to the other, for she is becoming indifferent to his brutality. Or maybe he needs to take it up a notch.

He puts one hand behind the man's neck and offers him to her with an elegant gesture. He can be such a gentleman, when he wants to.

"I thank you, brother, but I've got no appetite," she declines, polite and blank.

"You do offend me, sister," he replies, "I've been putting my best effort into offering you something that would please you." His words are too calculated for her to not catch the meaning of them.

"Did I offend you?" she asks, with no sentiment. "Then please, tell me when I committed such a crime, so that I can repeat the action without failing to hurt you."

He grits his teeth at her empty smile, takes comfort in the lifeless light of her eyes, for it means he drained her of her strength and her hopes and for the moment- if only for the moment – she will not rebel nor leave.

The thought soothes his volatile anger and he lets Eban's head go, using his hand to cup her cheek now. He can feel his own loneliness under his fingertips. Her skin is as velvety as an unripe peach, and isn't she unripe at love too?

"Your tongue is an adventurous one," he points out with slight pride and the ghost of a grin playing on his mouth.

In a sign of forgiveness, in a surge of weakness, he leans over and presses his lips to her cheek. He closes his eyes at the touch, feels the muscles of his legs and stomach tensing up; it must be because of the warmth of his fresh meal, which is making his body quiver with the need for more. Yes, it must.

Her smell is the same she had when she had held his head against her chest as he watched, broken, the lifeless body of their brother Henry; but it does not offer the same comfort. He would love to feel her heartbeat under his ear, the curve of her breast against his cheek, her hand in his hair.

She's always liked his hair.

Rebekah trembles under his lips, even though she has no other evident reaction. His imagination - later on, when he is high on blood and alcohol and his sweet sister is asleep in her chambers - conjures up her trembling frame and her comforting smell as he holds the girl by her hair and he thrusts unkindly into her mouth.

He keeps her head in place, stills his movements only to let her suck harder on him. Klaus looks down on her and a loud hiss escapes his lips. She's eager and obedient and so very blonde.

Lately – even Elijah noticed - he's got a thing for blondes. It does not mean a thing.


	2. Chapter 2

[England, 1494]

He does not knock. Just walks into her room, because that's his house too, and her flesh is his flesh too, and even if she's only half his blood, she is certainly half his soul so to hell with courtesy, because two years are long when you left each other with not more than an irritated look and an itch for revenge.

Bulgaria was fun for a while, and then it stopped altogether.

She lays on her side, nestled between her pillows, hugging one of them, her legs tangled in her sheets for she was never a quiet sleeper. When she was young - really young, and the sweet hills of her breasts did not grace her chest yet – she used to talk in her sleep. She mumbled things like _me too, Klaus_, with that stubborn, childish tone she used when he didn't let her ride sidesaddle because father would not approve. In the end he always gave in and always got beaten for that, but she was happy and so he was too.

Klaus pulls back the heavy awning and watches the sun tracing a large path through her waist, up to her shoulder. He turns around, goes back at the feet of her four poster bed, and crosses his arms over his chest.

"Here lays Rebekah Mikaelson, silly girl and pestiferous sister," he says, like he's reading her epitaph.

She makes an _mmm_ sound at the back of her throat and throws the pillow she was holding in his direction without bothering to abandon her rest. He dodges it with no effort.

"Such bad aim, didn't I teach you any better?"

Rebekah shuts her eyes tightly, trying to not let the voice interfere with her rest, but then they snap open as she recognizes his timbre. She pushes herself up and turns her head in his direction.

There's the ghost of a smile playing on his lips and she can't remember why she hated him so much anymore.

"_Nik_."

It surprises him, that name she uses, because it's been a long time since she has used it. Since that fateful night in Italy, when she broke his heart and he broke her. Three hundred and eighty years of constant torment, he himself inflicted for the most part. All of it wiped away by a three letters diminutive. And he feels he's finally home again.

It makes his mouth curve into a real smile, one he has not smiled in more than a few lifetimes.

It's been more than two years since they last saw each other and he never wrote her a single word. He's got a lot of things to tell her, tales of adventures and power, but mostly he should tell her that he missed her; only, he never will, because if he should ever suspect she did not miss him as much he's going to kill her and break the moment.

"Hello, love," he says, his voice soft, his eyes brilliant.

Her eyelashes tremble, her tone is composed but her face threatens to break with the effort to not smile her brightest smile.

"Have you been well?" she asks, prolonging the sweet agony of their unexpected reunion, before one of them ruins it all.

"Very much so," he says, "The Danube has the same color of your eyes," and this is the closest he can come to tell her how much of himself was left in England during that time.

She fights the smile forming on her mouth and clears her voice, looking every inch like an imperious Lady.

"And after almost three years of absence and not a single letter to assure your family about your well-being you come back empty handed? Did you grow up in a stable?"

Klaus chuckles and shakes his head, like he wants to accuse her of being the same old Bekah. His baby sister.

He gives her an intense gaze and his mouth takes a conspiratorial edge.

"You wound me with your distrust," he says, "I come bearing gifts, for the sister who loves me," he says, opening his arms, to invite her to him.

Rebekah smiles at the meaning of it.

There had been a moment when she didn't think they could ever be like this again, but she was wrong for her heart will not let her mind dwell on the past, and she just wants this moment to last a little longer.

Klaus looks at her, finally in front of him once again after far too distance and time in between.

He tormented and tortured her and they are bound to make each other bleed until the last of their days but he will not spoil this for himself. Maybe it's a lie, the aftershock of their separation before it all crumbles to pieces once again, but he's going to take it. And if he knows her half as well as he thinks he does she's going to jump on this possibility, for they are too tired to fight.

Her childlike face smiles and in a flash she's not only jumping on the possibility, but on him. Rebekah throws herself into his arms, making him fall to the ground with a thud and an "Ouch."

The surprise mixed with the impact on his back makes him shut his eyes and when he opens them again she's looking down at him, her blonde braid falling to the side, the crown of her golden hair shining in the sunlight. The mere batting of her brown lashes is a spectacle for his eyes.

They are back to a time when in his eyes she was never going to become a woman, and to her he could never be anything less than the noblest of men.

His heart aches a little, but she's so beautiful and so close and he's too numb to do anything but look stupidly up at her. He's been away so very long, touched and tasted so many women, so many bodies, only sharpening that tender pain, icy like her eyes when she's mad, overwhelming like her eyes when she's happy, for nothing in the world resembled her.

Rebekah touches one of his dimples with her fingertip, clarifying, "I'm the only sister that loves you," as she looks him in the eyes and sits astride his lap in her white nightgown.

"Then this deserves a reward," he concedes, as he hears the sound of footsteps on the doorstep of her bedroom.

She raises her eyes on the door and shows her smile to Elijah. "There are gifts," she announces, and Klaus pats her covered tight so that she will get up and let him stand too. He's not used to submissive positions and it does not seem like the moment to experiment.

"Our sister's disinterested love for the blood of her blood is deeply moving, isn't it?" Elijah asks, ironic and suave as usual.

"I am barely heartless," she says, faking offence.

"You are barely dressed," he points out, as she stands in her night clothes, "Join us at the table after you made yourself presentable, it's dinner time."

They wait for her to come downstairs speaking to each other like they were never made enemies by Katerina, and Klaus never used a white oak ash dagger on Elijah to punish him for failing his promise to bring the Petrova back. Family is family after all, they are deep into each other veins and life and no one will change that, ever.

The pretty girls at their backs wait for Rebekah to sit at her place and spread the napkin on her dress before taking a step forward and offering them their wrists.

Elijah makes a clean cut and fills himself a crystal glass. Rebekah gives a bite from a blue vein. Klaus takes the girl's hand and leads her with a seductive smile to sit on his lap, to nuzzle at her neck before biting her jugular.

Angling his face just so he can both drink from the girl and look at his sister as she tries to inquire, "How happy will I be about my gifts? Mildly so or truly enthusiastic? I would be disappointed in my brother's lack of grandeur," she says like she's being completely reasonable and selfless about it.

Elijah holds a smile, hiding his mouth behind the glass and Klaus grins against the neck he's drinking from.

On the wrist of the girl, held midair in front of Rebekah, a drop of blood rolls down from one of the holes made by her fangs and one drop lands on the hand-embroidered tablecloth so that her older brother scolds her, "Rebekah, don't waste your food," making her roll her eyes.

She fakes a smile, mocking him "I shall think of the less fortunate," before sticking her fork into a piece of meat, which lays defenseless in the porcelain plate in front of her.

"It will certainly be your solicitude to inform me about my grandeur, or lack thereof. I'm sure." Klaus says, going back to their previous topic of conversation.

"I'm merely protecting your honor," she says, after she's swallowed her meat, covering her mouth with one hand.

"I'm touched to tears," he says, gently pushing the girl away from his lap without as much as a glance.

"Do you need to borrow my handkerchief?" Rebekah asks, waving hers in front of him. His eyes easily catch her embroider initials. In another century men had given their life to win that simple piece of fabric, and her heart.

Klaus is tempted to take it.

"I could need it," he says, sipping a glass of wine, "With the amount of money I spent to lavish my dear sister in splendor and beauty, just to amuse her capricious taste," he fakes a sad sigh, staring into nothing, "Who knows, maybe I shall have to sell this house to cover for the expenses I so recklessly engaged in, to win her fickle favor."

"Her favor is not fickle, and such a thoughtful and generous brother is surely the brother dearest to her unchangeable heart."

"And how do you think we can prove that?"

"By telling her where her magnificent gifts are. You'll see, she will love you and your gifts equally," she quips, "_Or almost_."

Both brothers are amused at her attitude. Of her young age, despite the corruption she indulged in, she had preserved some of her traits, other than her looks.

Klaus stares at her, as she holds both his gaze and her breath, waiting and waiting and waiting for his to let her have her way.

"They're in my room," and he could swear his sister just learned to fly.

He likes it when he can give in to her like this, which it rarely happens.

"Such sweetness will have her merry for days," Elijah observes, feeling the suffocating weight of every words coming from his own mouth, "She will have something to hold on to when your devotion turns bitter once again."

Klaus doesn't argue, for they both know it will.

#

[Bomarzo, 1552]

It is Elijah's honor to present her to society; the radiance of the ambiance pales when she appears. Her fair complexion, her golden hair and color changing eyes, all harmoniously assembled on one single person suddenly appears like God's misstep and the stares turn into whispers, the whispers into awe and Klaus cannot help but grin in pride.

Her tongue can cut like a knife, her attitude is all but prudent, her conversation can gravely lack propriety, but her neck is slender over a bust that's admirably proportioned and when she walks she seems to rise above the atrocity of the human kind, like she's effortlessly leaving the hell's viscera under the plenum of her gracious feet. And this is what everyone sees, the glimpse of her that they can catch and sigh for. Italians do have a taste for this kind of blooming beauty and they can be greedy of it.

Klaus knows greed like no one else. Maybe this is why he can fit in so well.

He stares at her openly, for hers is his flesh and no one would dare to question his righteous interest in her. She is clearly faking an unaware smile, as she lets Elijah lead her, hand upon his hand as he escorts her down the white marble staircase.

The jewels adorning her neck are one of the tokens he brought her from Bulgaria; he was hoping the stones would be heavy enough to hold her down, tie her to him, so that she would not wander far, would not be out of his reach. They are not.

"If I may dare, Count," Lord Pierfrancesco II Orsini, known as Vicino Orsini, approaches him with his elegant mannerisms, "Such an enchanting creature can hardly be human."

Klaus grins and bows his head to accept the compliment graciously, not bothering to cover up the mischievous light in his eyes.

"Let me extent the gratitude my sister will surely feel when she hears of your kindness towards her, my Lord." he replies, equally refined.

"I speak nothing but truth," he assures him, turning his eyes to catch her profile in the distance, "I've heard you've only recently returned to Italy after a long absence."

"Indeed, my Lord. My family's properties needed my attendance."

Through the years and the connection has been easy to keep a fortune and gain the needed titles for his family to have the due recognition, and just as it suited to a man of his status he does nothing much but enjoy the fruits of his fortune, treating it like it's his job.

"Of course. One must not neglect his obligations," he agrees with a solemn nod, "And where have you been before gracing Rome with your exquisite company?"

"We've been in Florence, and Venice."

"Venice?" he asks, the pleasure clear on his face, "I've lived the beauty of Venice for a few happy years, before meeting my spouse," he adds when his wife joins him in the conversation.

Niklaus takes it upon himself to please her with a curtsy and a smile. He's mastered the art of pleasing a woman in all ways possible and it comes as easy as breathing. If he needed to breathe at all, that is.

"My Lady. You honor my modest home with your sole presence. I am condemned at not having equal pleasure ever again, for no one's presence will give me as much joy as yours."

Lady Giulia Farnese lower her eyes, graciously "You're too kind, my Lord," the smile she offers him is true and flushed.

"But I believe," she adds, "that your sister will be the cause of many broken hearts tonight," she says, sounding almost conspiratorial as she shares a look with her husband.

"Mark my words. She will have plenty amorous promises to choose from, by the end of the night."

He's quite used to it by now and he doesn't flinch at the insinuation, but smile in appreciation at the compliment that's just been made to his family.

"She does remind me of the _Flora_," Lord Vicino Orsini says casually, "doesn't she, my dear? Bartolomeo Veneto would have surely chosen her over any other woman if he had the chance to meet her."

The rest of the world always believed Lucrezia Borgia to be the woman in the portrait, and he has no pleasure remembering that someone took the liberty to immortalize his sister when he never did - blaming it on his competitiveness as a man that indulges himself in art - so he lets the comment pass with no reply. Instead, he resumes their previous topic of conversation.

"She's the only consolation of my brother's and I after the departure of our dear parents, and I fear we are not ready to let her go. Therefore, my sister will not marry," he says, "just yet," he adds, to not raise unwanted questions.

"I do not think it is fair, but I can't really condemn such a pure attachment," Lady Giulia says, taking her husband's arms.

"Nonetheless," Lord Orsini, cuts in, "I am sure you will not want to deny her the joy of a little diversion. I insist that you visit with us to our property."

"Yes, you must," his wife concurs.

"You'll see that I gave vent to my heart with it, and it will lift your spirit to extraordinary highs," he says, proudly.

The Sacred Wood – how his creator call it, even if people do often refer to it as Garden of the Monsters, out of dread – is a labyrinth, and it is said to narrate, allegorically, a long dream in which Polifilo must placate his heartache over Polia, his deceased lover, and to do so he must undertake a journey to try and challenge death and finally rejoin himself with her.

"It would be a true pleasure," and all night it's been the first genuine pleasure. So much so that he can overlook the naïve proposals both he and Elijah receives on his sister's behalf.

He and his siblings accept the invitation with enthusiasm, and the garden proves itself to be as fascinating as its growing fame. It's a labyrinth of symbols where ladies and paladins can go in search of what is most dear to their souls, where they can wonder to bewilderment, finding themselves and their most secret fears.

Such a unique place, nestled over a hill, populated by Cerberus and turtles and obelisks, nymphs and great statues.

Elijah is quite intrigued by the _Orca_, the giant head of an ogre with a wide open mouth in which there is a stone table, and it's used as oasis. His older brother engages himself in a conversation with a shepherd, which makes Rebekah restless, for she is very eager to see the rest of the garden, so they part ways.

Those monsters peering out from the weeds and overgrowth frightens the local people but not his Bekah, whom looks ready to make them her pets, her toys. Peasants speaks of the place as an hunted wood, where ghosts lead you to death and perdition.

She gets brighter and brighter with every piece of the disconnected story they encounter on their path, to the point of being overjoyed when they are not even halfway through their journey. She runs up the stairs when they arrive at the _Hanging House_. She looks down the window and takes a step back to spin on her heels, round and round, like a child playing. A strand of her hair falls, and then all her coiffure does, and she does not care at all. She's overwhelmed and childishly happy and he crosses his arms on his chest waiting for her to stop acting that way. Still he cannot stop himself from grinning.

"You'll be dizzy," he says, leaning with his back to the wall of the room, on the side that's sloping.

She does not listen but keeps on turning, "Isn't it an amazing place?"

"It is a hallucination built in rocks, I don't see the thrill," he shrugs, trying to sound unimpressed, "Now, please, behave."

"Oh, spoilsport!" she accuses him breathlessly, stopping herself from turning. The sloping of the whole house and the dizzying twirling makes her lose her balance and fall towards him. He's surprised and does not catch her until she's crushed against his chest. His hands around her waist, her breast so very soft against him, her hair loosen and fragrant. Her eyes brightly gaze into his. Her mouth only half closed and entirely too accessible for a man of his strength and speed.

There's a rock stuck in the middle of his throat and he has the urge to scold her about something.

"Have you gained weight, sister?"

Her eyes grow wide in righteous indignation, she takes a precarious step back – risking falling against him once again - and hits his shoulder, successfully dislocating it.

It gets her an "Ouch!" and a wink and then she's shaking her head and laughing, running out of the house at human speed, challenging him to get her before she reaches the _Cerere._

_#_

**Note:**The "Flora" or "Portrait of a woman" is a painting credited to Bartolomeo Veneto, even known as Bartolomeo Veneziano, and the woman in it is said to be Lucrezia Borgia. The Sacred Wood/Monsters Garden does really exsist, it's a bizarre park known only by few, near the city of Bomarzo, in central Italy._Orca_ means _Ogre_, _Cerere_ is the goddess _Ceres._ I had imagined this fiction to be two chapters long but it seems it won't be so. One more, maybe?


End file.
